


The Late Night Cappuccino

by Taste_of_Suburbia



Series: an unquiet mind [22]
Category: From Paris with Love (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Coffee Shops, First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, Implied/Referenced Murder, Matchmaking, Partnership, Prophetic Visions, Trope Bingo Round 14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22973287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_of_Suburbia/pseuds/Taste_of_Suburbia
Summary: Never stand in the way of Reece and his coffee.Or: Reece and Wax first meet, of all places, in a coffee shop… at 8 o’clock at night.
Series: an unquiet mind [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1400899
Kudos: 1
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen





	The Late Night Cappuccino

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Trope Bingo](https://immolate-the-silence.dreamwidth.org/47728.html) for the prompt Matchmaker. According to dictionary.com: a matchmaker is “any person, organization, etc., that brings two parties together,” cue, in this piece/series, the agency. 
> 
> **Series:** an unquiet mind

Reece had tried to get better about his late night coffee runs, really, it was just that with all the paperwork piling up in his once sparse living room, he needed a way to actually stay  _conscious_ . It was also, of course, much easier getting  _actual_ work done when he wasn’t subjected to mind-splitting, panic-inducing, generally more confusing than helpful visions. 

So here he was, opting for something light to get him through a couple hours more max, just something enough to perk him up but not keep him up all night either.

It would have gone well enough too had a bulky man with a shaved head, a silver hoop in his ear and questionable fashion choices not decided to cut in front of him, no doubt assuming Reece was too preoccupied perusing the selection of pastries to notice. He should have probably kept his mouth shut, given the guy looked like he could pummel him to the floor in two seconds flat, but if there was one thing in this world that pissed Reece off other than sorting through his visions  _alone_ and without any help whatsoever, something which the agency hadn’t in the  _least_ bit alleviated as they had  _promised_ to, it was something or  _someone_ standing in the way of his caffeine, even if there wouldn’t be much of it tonight from sheer willpower alone. 

He pushed his way forward, refusing to remain docile and ignorant. “Excuse me, but I was before you.”

“Huh?” The object of his scolding turned, giving Reece a deer in the headlights moment of pure panic. The putrid green scarf wrapped around the man’s neck, while oddly absurd, made him appear no less intimidating, while the leather jacket did nothing in the way of allowing Reece to ignore his size, weight and stature. He looked fierce too, fierce with the capacity of becoming pretty angry pretty  _fast._

This was a  _bad_ idea and it was only going to get  _worse._

Regardless of appearances, Reece swallowed down his reservations, maintained eye contact and somehow held his ground. He could be pretty fierce too when he wanted to be. “I  _said_ that you just cut in front of me. I was ahead of you and I’m taking my space back.”

There was a pause, quite possibly the longest pause of Reece’s life. He could shrink back, apologize, chew his latest hangnail in anxiety, but he was tired and he wanted to get back to his apartment and he really wanted that caffeine-fix  _now,_ and then the man, towering above him even though he was barely a few inches taller, granted him a response that wasn’t his fists… yet. “Really? You sure you wanna do that?”

“I  _am.”_

The second longest pause of Reece’s life succeeded those words before the man graciously waved a hand and offered him his place back in line. “Okay then.”

It was alarming and unbelievable and strange, but no less strange than going to a coffee house at eight o’clock at night, Reece supposed. He just hadn’t thought it was going to be so easy, putting up a stand without there being repercussions. He thought about saying thank you out of habit, as only a fool would, but then he realized he had absolutely no reason to thank this man other than to thank him for not punching his lights out.

Still, when he had finally placed his order he couldn’t get far away fast enough, making a beeline for the cream and sugar station. He accepted his cappuccino after no more than a minute and a half of waiting, relieved he had actually dodged a bullet and a figurative one but  _still,_ and distracted enough from this that he forgot entirely the man had been directly behind him…

A body settled in place beside him, long arm blocking Reece’s access to the half-packet of sugar he wanted. “Pretty impressive. For a second there I thought you weren’t gonna stand up for yourself.”

Reece, annoyed at the intrusion, lifted his head and scowled. The man actually had the audacity to look…  _amused?_ “Excuse me?”

“For a second there, I thought I had been assigned to some pansy ass partner that was going to let me walk all over him.” With that, his arm finally moved so that Reece could reach the sugar; trouble was, Reece was too shell-shocked to do so now. “Granted, you  _are_ going to let me have my way more often than not, but I’d appreciate a partner who keeps me on my toes a bit.”

Reece stared up at the smirk, the effortless confidence, the swagger as the man turned and leaned against the counter-top. “Partner?”

“Oh, did I just say something you  _didn’t_ get?”

Reece shook his head. “There’s no way.”

“Of course there’s a way.” He finished stirring the five packets of sugar he had just put into his coffee, obscenely licked the stirrer and then tossed it away, giving his full attention to Reece. “Of course there’s a way the agency gave me a list of plenty qualified agents with fuck-loads of experience but not enough backbone worth a damn, and  _of course_ there’s a way you were on that list and hell, there’s even a possibility that I  _chose_ you, my most highly recommended match. I don’t usually do well with recommendations,” he added, as if Reece should feel flattered by this admission, “but I think we’re gonna be able to help each other. In more ways than one.”

There was a part of him that didn’t even want an explanation of all of that.

Reece nearly dropped his cappuccino had it not been for the hand wrapping around his own, securing it. It was warm and rough and huge, considerate but also controlling, everything he had and hadn’t expected. This was unorthodox, meeting his new partner like this, and Reece wondered whether it had been his idea, wondered how much hold he had on the reins, almost didn’t want to know how much leeway the agency had given him.

Quite a lot for Reece not to have gotten a warning, even a phone call.

But  _most highly recommended match?_ What the hell? Which meant, of course, that his new partner didn’t know. So  _this_ was what the agency had settled with  _again_ : building Reece up and polishing him off like he was some superstar and selling him to the highest bidder. Sure, this guy looked tough, but they all ended up bolting in the end as soon as they found out. He decided to spare this man, not to mention  _himself,_ the misery. He was bitterly  _sick_ of having that glimmer of hope brush past him on the way out. “You don’t want me.”

The man’s iron grip finally released him, eyes widening in surprise with the faintest flicker of pity. That pity would turn to revulsion in the space of a heartbeat. “I assume you mean because of your premonition thingies?”

It was Reece’s cue for his own heartbeat to stutter and then jolt back to life in painful anxiety and frigid disbelief.

He  _knew?_

_No one_ , he repeated  _no one_ had ever given him a second look as soon as they had known. Sure, they’d given shitty excuses and bailed on him, too terrified of what they could never come to understand and yet too cowardly to even fake it and  _try_ for half a second, so who the hell  _was_ this guy? 

Reece decided to try to play it cool, hoping against hope that this new partner of his wouldn’t downplay his curse, which would be almost as bad as being terrified of it. He didn’t need a partner to ignore his visions, to pretend they didn’t exist, he  _needed_ someone who could work with him in  _every_ capacity of their partnership. He needed someone who wouldn’t blow it all out of proportion but who wouldn’t run and hide until the worst of it blew over either. 

“You mean that’s not a deal-breaker for you?” The biggest deal-breaker of them all.

His new partner shrugged like they were talking about the weather or coffee or decisions that couldn’t irrevocably alter the course of their lives. “Back in the day maybe, back when I was a fool kid and took the easy cases, the ones with the shortest route to that pot of gold. Until I realized that you can’t get better and can’t  _grow_ and can’t figure out shit in life if you don’t take the hard way every once in a while.” 

And Reece was  _what…_ the hard way, the next challenge? Was there some reward in it for him? A time frame until Reece was partner-less again, having to fend for himself against ever-increasing odds? 

“What did they tell you?”

His eyes lightened, posture relaxing a fraction more. “Not much. Your file’s pretty impressive though. I know how well you can handle yourself. I know about your last partner….”  _My_ dead  _last partner, you mean._ He paused as if waiting for Reece to finish that red line of memory, a string of memories to overcrowd Reece with helplessness and guilt and  _sin:_ the sin of killing your own partner, the sin of putting yourself in that position from sheer carelessness... “I know you need help, sometimes, and that ain’t nothing to be ashamed of.”  _I murdered my partner how could he…?_ “Partnership is all about trust and communication, right, when you boil it down? Hell, I’ve had enough years of experience to goddamn  _know_ it’s not about how many bullets you have in your gun, it’s about how many your  _partner_ has. So I’m trusting you, James Reece.” Reece half-expected him to get down on his knees at this point, despite how ludicrous it would be. “I’m communicating with you that I know  _everything_ there is to know about you and then some. I’m holding out a rope here and you’re going to take it. I goddamn  _know_ you’re going to take it because you’re not a fool, not like I was.” 

And how the hell was he supposed to argue with  _that?_

When words failed him, caffeine rushed in. The cappuccino tasted bitter on his tongue, just a few degrees short of scalding. The saliva was almost too thick in his mouth, nearly choking him. More than anything, the small jolt of caffeine was almost too much, getting him on the edge of jitteryness, apt to make a decision he needed to make but one he would usually dwell over for days, not hours, not minutes, not mere caffeine-driven seconds.

“Do you have a name I can use?” Because it suddenly seemed pretty absurd that they’d had this whole conversation about trust and about Reece’s past and how Reece didn’t know a single thing about this partner who he was just supposed to accept, just as he was, just like that.

“You can call me Wax, pard.” A grin both predatory and reassuring and how was that even  _possible?_ “Wax and Reece. Kinda like the sound of that.”

**FIN**


End file.
